ease put my cup down."

At the same moment she saw Wharton coming back to her--Mr. Pearson
behind him, smiling, and gently twirling the seals of his watch-chain.
She was instantly struck by Wharton's look of excitement, and by the
manner in which--with a momentary glance aside at the Winterbourne
party--he approached her.

"There is such a charming little room in there," he said, stooping his
head to her, "and so cool after this heat. Won't you try it?"

The energy of his bright eye took possession of her. He led the way; she
followed. Her dress almost brushed Aldous Raeburn as she passed.

He took her into a tiny room. There was no one else there, and he found
a seat for her by an open window, where they were almost hidden from
view by a stand of flowers.

As he sat down again by her, she saw that a decisive moment had come,
and blanched almost to the colour of her dress. Oh! what to do! Her
heart cried out vaguely to some power beyond itself for guidance, then
gave itself up again to the wayward thirst for happiness.

He took her hand strongly in both his own, and bending towards her as
she sat bowered among the scent and colours of the flowers, he made her
a passionate declaration. From the first moment that he had seen her
under the Chiltern beeches, so he vowed, he had felt in her the supreme,
incomparable attraction which binds a man to one woman, and one only.
His six weeks under her father's roof had produced in him feelings
which he knew to be wrong, without thereby finding in himself any power
to check them. They had betrayed him into a mad moment, which he had
regretted bitterly because it had given her pain. Otherwise--his voice
dropped and shook, his hand pressed hers--"I lived for months on the
memory of that one instant." But he had respected her suffering, her
struggle, her need for rest of mind and body. For her sake he had gone
away into silence; he had put a force upon himself which had alone
enabled him to get through his parliamentary work.

Then, with his first sight of her in that little homely room and
dress--so changed, but so lovely!--everything--admiration, passion--had
revived with double strength. Since that meeting he must have often
puzzled her, as he had puzzled himself. His life had been a series of
perplexities. He was not his own master; he was the servant of a cause,
in which--however foolishly a mocking habit might have led him at times
to be-little his own enthusiasms and her